The City of Fremantle is part of the larger Southern Metropolitan Regional Council (SMRC), where local governments in southern Perth work together to provide waste and recycling services for our residents.

Since 2016 CoF have been working closely with the other member councils to assess the merits of the three bin system, including a trial with 7000 homes in the City of Melville.

The results from the trial so far have been better than expected, with the bins being used correctly and less contamination of the FOGO bins than anticipated.

Subject to final approval, the three bin system will be introduced to more than 13,000 residential households in Fremantle in July and August next year.

The roll-out will include high-profile education program to let people know what to put in each bin and how the system will work.

Because of issues with access and space the roll-out will not include high-density areas like the city centre and some town houses, commercial properties or residential complexes with more than four units, although this will be subject to review over time.

The new system will mean the City will need to carry out an additional 400,000 bin lifts per year.

The capital cost of setting up the system – including purchasing the new bins – will be around $1.2 million, while additional ongoing operational costs will be between $250,000 and $350,000 per year.

A report in the West Australian yesterday that the sales of electric cars in Australia has dropped by 90 per cent made me wonder what is happening with the Fremantle solar charging station as part of the RAC electrichighway.

Sales of electric vehicles in Australia have always been very low so the One Planet $ 50,000 investment by the City of Fremantle appears to be money not well spent, as only a handful of drivers would use the charger. The charging station at the Esplanade was supposed to start early last year but I have since been told by staff that the City is looking for another location for it.

Another One Planet project, the solar parklet near the Lenny the Ox cafe at Wray Avenue, is also very slow. The last I heard from the project manager was that it would start in December last year but that has not eventuated.

Fremantle resident Andrew Luobikis’ Thinking Allowed in the Fremantle Herald today is worth reading as it makes some important factual points about electric cars and the City of Fremantle investing $ 130,000.00 in an electric vehicle charging station at the Esplanade carpark.

I have pointed out in previous blogs how low the use of electric vehicles in Australia is, but Luobikis, who works in the auto industry, adds a few more facts to that. There are only 170 registered electric cars in WA and the sale of electric cars is going down. According to Luobikis 100,000 cars were sold in 2015 but of that there were only 73 electric ones, so that is an extremely low percentage to justify the $ 130,000 outlay for a charging station hardly anyone will be using. In Australia more than one million vehicles were sold in 2015 but just 890 electric vehicles, Luobikis writes. I think that gets the point across very well.

Fremantle Council has been spending large amounts of ratepayers money on low hanging, low-impact, fruit that has no major benefit for the general community and is pure tokenism to minority interest groups. Have they even asked themselves why so few local governments on earth have signed up for One Planet, probably because more mature and realistic councils see it as a gimmick that wastes money that could be spent on far more worthwhile projects?

I went to a CUSP organised One Planet talk at Victoria Hall yesterday that coincided with this morning’s blog on Malmo by Fremantle Mayor Brad Pettitt, who is on one of those fact finding tours to liveable cities. Brad raves about what the city has done and believes that some of it could be implemented on the Works Depot site at Knutsford/Amherst streets.

At Victoria Hall Dr Vanessa Rauland gave a talk on carbon, and she will do carbon classes in Fremantle schools as well in the future. Also speaking was Katy Anketel from the South Fremantle Senior High School and the City of Fremantle environmental officer whose name I don’t know.

Most of what I heard yesterday, and what Brad Pettitt wrote on his blog, makes sense, but I am skeptical about how we can change the ingrained Australian culture of the Great Australian Dream, and single storey houses with front and backyards, and the car and waste culture we have in our country. Only education will change that so Vanessa Rauland’s school education will be a good start, but it will also mean that probably this is going to be slow change that won’t happen overnight.

There is no doubt for me that we need to learn to embrace higher density in our cities and as long as the buildings are well designed and human scale I have no problem with it. It is essential that high density buildings along traffic corridors are well sound proofed and emphasis should be on human comfort and amenity and public spaces, roof gardens, etc.

We also need to insist that developers design large residential areas so that houses can be built to take advantage of the sun, and I am all for legislating that new dwellings need to have solar power and rainwater tanks, and maybe some form of grey water use. We also need to insist that houses are being built properly with double glazing, and insulation against heat, cold and noise. The way buildings are positioned and designed for our climate will also make a big difference.

Brad Pettitt writes that the former port area in Malmo has been designed to exclude garbage trucks and that waste is sucked to areas outside the suburb where trucks can pick it up. Great idea, but it will add cost to buildings, so maybe government incentives could be introduced here in Western Australia.

There is a lot we can learn from how countries with high population are attacking the carbon and other environmental problems, but we need to stay away from comparing Fremantle with cities that are very different and much much larger. If we remain realistic we can make the changes needed that will have a big impact.

Dr Vanessa Rauland suggested it is better to do things on a smaller scale as we have more control over it and it might become more achievable as well. The solar farm in South Fremantle will be a good example of what a community can do, while a windfarm is probably done better the way they do it in Victoria where councils combine and work together to buy a large area well away from their communities and put a windfarm there.

There are a lot of exiting things we can do to stop the madness of waste and pollution and we need to start with education and communication that is realistic and leave ideology at home. I really enjoyed the talks at Victoria Hall yesterday and was inspired by them.

I don’t want to be a party pooper, but when you watch the Australia Day fireworks today live in Fremantle or Perth, or on the TV from around the nation, think about how much better we could have spent the money instead of blowing up explosives in the sky. How often do we hear local governments tell us they don’t have funding for maintenance or new infrastructure and whilst acknowledging the history of the beginning of British settlement is appropriate, I wonder if we are not getting over the top with it and should use the money we spend on fireworks on something more worthwhile, e.g. a memorial on Rottnest Island for the indigenous people who were inhumanely treated there with hundreds of them dying on the island.

It is quite amazing that the carbon neutral, One Planet and ever so environmentally conscious City of Fremantle would organise fireworks because it creates pollution in the ocean and in the air we breath, and it scares the hell out of dogs.

Fireworks, according to experts, create smoke and dust that contains heavy metals, sulphur-coal and compounds and noxious chemicals. Barium creates intense green colours but is poisonous and radioactive, copper gives the brilliant blue colours but contains dioxin which is linked to cancer.

Cadmium, lithium,antimony,rubidum,strontium,lead,potassium nitrate are also commonly used for different fireworks effects.

I wonder what amount the City of Fremantle spent on today’s fireworks and the Council party they always have on the waterfront. Happy Australia Day!

As part of the City of Fremantle’s One Planet commitment to waste reduction, the City and the Fremantle Business Improvement District (BID) are calling on all Fremantle cafes to join the Responsible Cafes program.

The Responsible Cafes program aims to reduce the amount of plastic waste from disposable coffee cups. The City is getting on board by providing incentives to the local community and visitors to use reusable coffee cups at cafes in Fremantle.

Fremantle cafes are encouraged to join the program by providing a modest discount to customers who bring their own reusable cups. By participating in the program, cafes not only save money and reduce waste, but also increase awareness of single-use waste and plastics in our environment.

Canvas Café, Moore & Moore, Fixx Espresso Bar, The Loft, Grumpy Sailor and Legally Brewed have all come on board as early adopters of the program, which will launch officially at the Plastic Free Summer Festival on Saturday 17January 2015.

The City hopes to sign up 20 local cafes to the Responsible Cafes program by 2016, as part of its commitment to the One Planet Fremantle Strategy.

To kick-start the program, the City is providing cafés who become part of the Responsible Cafes program with an initial batch of reusable cups. The cafés are able to use these to help promote the fact they are a responsible café and to encourage people to bring in reusable cups.

Disposable coffee cups are a growing problem in Australia with about one billion disposable cups making their way into landfill or the natural environment each year, creating harmful greenhouse gases and significantly affecting the marine environment.

For more information on the Responsible Cafes program, the Plastic Free Summer Festival or the City of Fremantle’s Plastic Free Initiatives contact melanieb@fremantle.wa.gov.au.